Thinking Blogger Award

Posted by John Lockwood on February 29th, 2008

callout_1 Wow. Hard on the heels of Inman’s nomination as one of the real estate blogosphere’s five least influential bloggers (no — I made that up — the truth is they never heard of me), Kathy T. over at Shak and Jill was nice enough to present Purva and I with our very own Thinking Blogger Award.

See, you thought we were just another C-list collection of market updates, but NOOOO, it turns out we’re actually “whimsical, informative, funny, and interesting.”

I should put that in bolder print so those of you who don’t read me can not see it.

That sure beats our last review, which accused us of being “uninformed, carcinogenic, dimwitted and fascist.”

No, I made that up, too. Inman never heard of me. Really.

Anyway, that’s the good news. The bad news is that there’s a bit of a chain letter aspect to the award — or at least, a sort of obligation to pass it on. I don’t usually go for that sort of thing, but today I was whining about that brick Inman threw at my window (no seriously, they didn’t), and Purva said “Well, gee, you depressed, egomaniacal dullard, at least you won the thinking blogger award!”

So today I have to come up with five blogs that have made me think and pass the award along, otherwise I break the chain and a Voodoo practitioner from the Dominican Republic will come after me with small animal bones and the blood of a chicken.

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So without further ado, five blogs that have made me think. And remember you winners, you have to acknowledge this post and pass it along! Well, no, really you don’t have to do anything, but it’d be cool if you did.

Problogger
Yeah, I know, everyone links to Problogger, but that’s because his work is really, really good. If you want to improve your blog, the ideas he presents are a must read.

The Great Seduction
On the opposite scale of the popularity contest from Darren Rowse is the Web 2.0 critic, Andrew Keene. You might say that John Lockwood is to RE.net as Andrew Keene is to Web 2.0 in general. It’s not that he’s my Luddite hero or anything, but I do sense a bit of kindred spirit.

Sacramento Real Estate Gal
I don’t know if it’s cheating or not to mention Purva, since she’s an author here, but what the heck. In addition to her important role as my co-author and only friend, it’s a pleasure to enjoy her clarity of thought and optimism for real estate. She also really helps out the recruiting cause by saying nice things about the company — and it’s always good to be appreciated.

The Real Estate Blog Lab
So many of what pass for “real estate technology” blogs strike me as cheerleader pieces for gadgets I could care less about. “It’s a lockbox key AND an MP3 player”. Sorry, don’t need one. Dave Smith’s Real Estate Blog Lab is different. It really is a lab — a sort of Wordpress user’s journal that makes a fascinating ongoing experiment in blogging techniques.

The Housechick Blog
It seems to me that Kelly Koehler is one of the few people who has mastered the art of writing a real estate blog that her real estate customers would find interesting and informative. This blog successfully blends the local with the universal. Plus, how can you not like someone who calls herself the Housechick?